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Sunday, March 5, 2017

'Characters/Scene from' MichaelA: 'Who You Gonna Call?'

So here we are, the final bonus round of the 'VII Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge', where did the time go? 'Character(s) and/or Scene from a Movie, TV Program or Piece of Music' is perhaps a little more descriptive than some of the previous titles this year, think East and West for example, but nevertheless it was going to require a modicum of thought. Now fortunately for me, I am a sucker for a movie or TV tie-in and have a whole plethora of miniatures that could have been used for this round, but in the end it came down to Ghostbusters and of course this project came with the added advantage of meeting both film and music objectives, but sadly that doesn't warrant any additional points for doing so.

In the past, I would have looked to create a single vignette for the round, but the ideas were growing by the day and in the end decided that I would paint the miniatures and then dress the set accordingly, all the time considering how it might work. The miniatures are mainly from 'Crooked Dice' with a couple of Ectoplasmic Entities (or Slimers) and a pack of Harbingers added to complete the range.

Additional spooks were recruited in the shape of a 'Reaper Bones' spirit; this is a clear plastic miniature, but I decided I wanted a little more variety. To that end I swapped out the skulls for a couple found on a 'Wargames Factory' sprue and then each was given some additional toning with Tamiya Clear Green before highlights were picked out with a fluorescent paint. This lime green fluorescent paint was also added to the Slimers, but more of that later.

Finally a simple bed sheet ghost form 'Ristul's Extraordinary Market' - available in this county through 'Bad Squiddo Games' and a Hellbeast to represent Zuul from 'Hersey Miniatures'. This was a multipart resin piece and needed a bit of fixing and filling, but certainly worth the effort. I decided to remove the rather fetching skull she had dangling from the chain around her neck, possible a detail too far for this scenario.

With the addition of a pre-painted Mr. Stay Puft money box that I won on a well known online action site the cast was assembled and so to the set, which in this case was predominately made up from my 'Battle Systems' Urban Apocalypse card stock, the centre piece of which was going to be the City Fire Station. Although this does take a while to put together the quality of the stock, and its versatility, more than make up for the time invested in the construction. With the set dressed and ready to go, it was time for the secret weapon - ectoplasm!

I had picked up a child's tub of the wondrous Ghostbusters Goo along with which came a 3D Ghostbusters plastic logo, now seen proudly atop the Fire Station and this was then liberally draped around the place and took on a life of its own. So to the photography and all is as it seems, there is no photoshopping here, just the addition of a UV torch. This of course had the effect of highlighting the fluorescent paint, ectoplasm and the plastic rubber cord used to simulate the proton packs energy stream.

And so you have it my homage to one of the biggest grossing comedies of all times and still a film that I thoroughly enjoy revisiting whenever I can. With the most recent celluloid incarnation breathing life back into the franchise, who knows where this will lead, but for me I now need to get to grips with the 7TV rule set in order to justify yet another fabulous diversion!

*blushes* Thank you, I can't tell you how much fun this was once the characters were painted. The UV light was a blast and I found myself going back and adding highlights of fluorescent paint to various miniatures to see what would happen.

Ohmygosh this so cool I darn near wet my pants. I would never have thought of the UV light - that is why you, Mr. Awdry, tower above mere mortals such as I. With apologies to Lord Nelson, this is another example of "The Awdry Touch".